SKT, KT Resuming Wi-Fi Investment
By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
The nation's leading mobile carriers, SK Telecom and KT, are resuming their investment in Wi-Fi as greater accessibility for wireless Internet has emerged as a top concern amid the rising popularity of smartphones.
E-Mail and Web browsing are obvious applications for smartphones.
The debut of Apple's iconic iPhone in the South Korean market is making Samsung and LG Electronics strengthen their portfolios in the sector, pushing carriers to allocate more to Wi-Fi networks.
"We've held internal talks on resuming investment in Wi-Fi. We are searching for some measures to maximize the efficiency of Wi-Fi networks," an SK Telecom spokesman said Thursday.
Although the official declined to elaborate further, market analysts and industry watchers say the nation's top mobile carrier may set up its own "hot zones" for easier accessibility for wireless Internet rather than expanding Wi-Fi coverage in partnership with its affiliate SK Broadband.
Wi-Fi offers access to high-speed Internet within a certain radius of devices installed with an Access Point (AP) at the tip of its wireless Internet.
LG Group's telecom trio, which will merge in January next year, have also been in line with the moves by implementing similar measures toward Wi-Fi.
"We need more investment in Wi-Fi as the combined LG is planning to introduce converged fixed and wireless-based telecom services in 2010," an LG Telecom spokesman said, adding the growing demand for smartphones in the local market will accelerate it to allocate more spending on Wi-Fi.
As of the end of last month, LG Dacom has expanded the number of APs to 2.1 million on a subscriber base. But its Wi-Fi services do not offer wireless Internet functions outside households and office buildings.
KT, which is selling the iPhone via an exclusive partnership with Apple, plans to increase the number of its "Nespot zones" by over five-fold to 60,000 in 2010 from the current 13,000, according to KT officials.
KT is currently operating its own paid wireless LAN services across the country.
"Additionally, we will upgrade wireless LAN equipment to strengthen our home network services based on a fixed mobile convergence (FMC) platform," a KT spokesman said, adding the company has been in talks to buy IEEE 802.11n products to match up with its corporate strategy.
KT is set to provide wireless Internet access at McDonald's outlets capitalizing on the nation's capital areas from December, in addition to Starbucks and four domestic airports.
KT has stopped expanding its Nespot zones since 2005 due to falling subscribers which had once reached 500,000. In 2002, Hanarotelecom, which is now SK Broadband, and LG Dacom scrapped their Wi-Fi businesses.